Beyond The “Wild Wild Country”, In Dynamic Yoga And Meditation
International YOGA DAY SPECIAL!
Netflix’s 2018 documentary “Wild Wild Country” used the notorious case of Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho) and his Rajneeshpuram community in the US
to highlight how Hinduism and its central tenets of yoga, meditation, and ritualism went wrong in the West.
This misinterpretation and misrepresentation persists even today and is often considered the domineering reason being the association of Hinduism with Hippie and drug culture.
In 1970s America, Osho and his “Rajneesh sannyasins” bought an 80,000 acres ranch in Oregon and started a spiritual agricultural commune.
Most of the followers came from the white, middle-class hippie youth who embraced a lifestyle of peace, love, sex, and drugs—exploring spirituality through psychedelic substances, meditation, yoga, astrology, and Native American mysticism.
Osho himself introduced a dynamic form of meditation, an hour-long, five-stage yoga movement consisting of deep fast chaotic breathing, catharsis, the use of the mantra "Hoo", silence, and dancing.
He fused Western psychotherapy with Eastern yogic practices to create an awareness of mental and emotional patterns.
He also developed new meditation practices, such as the Kundalini "shaking" meditation and the Nadabrahma "humming" meditation.
Do you want to understand meditation in detail? Click below to know!
Osho’s cult was short-lived. However, his yoga and meditation innovations have persisted. For instance, Osho’s ashram in Pune has become an international meditation resort.
The Osho International Foundation (OIF), today, also runs stress management seminars for corporate clients such as IBM and BMW in the US.